Report Finds French Clergy Sexually Abused Over 200,000 Children in 70 Years

French clergy have sexually abused over 200,000 children in the last 70 years, according to an investigation.

Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that put the report together, said the church showed “deep, total and even cruel indifference for years,” and that most of the victims were boys, between the ages of 10 and 13.

“Faced with this scourge, for a very long time the Catholic Church’s immediate reaction was to protect itself as an institution and it has shown complete, even cruel, indifference to those having suffered abuse,” the report said.

The report, which claims that the church sometimes knowingly put children in contact with predators, comes from a commission that worked independently from the church and was established by French bishops in 2018.